Brooke: 'I Feel Good' About Pregnancy

Speaking about her new pregnancy on Wednesday morning's Today show, Brooke Shields says that as far as a specific due date is concerned, "We don't know exactly yet. I just found out."

The actress and her husband, writer Chris Henchy, will welcome their second child sometime in the spring, her rep told PEOPLE. The couple, who wed in 2001, already have a 2-year-old daughter, Rowan.

Shields said Wednesday, "I feel good," and credited "doing the Broadway show" – she stars as Roxie in the current revival of Chicago – as contributing to her sense of vitality.

Shields, 40, also said that she was strongly in need of medical assistance in helping to conceive Rowan. This time, she said, "It was easier insofar as that it could be considered natural compared to what I went through with my daughter Rowan. ... I was so in need of fertility the first time ... it was a real journey."

She also said that as a result of having a first baby, "My body actually changed."

Though the news of Shields's pregnancy was in the media last week, she told cohosts of The View on Wednesday that her daughter first broke the story – to her playgroup, telling the other kids, "There’s a baby in mommy’s belly."

As has been well documented (in her book, Down Came the Rain: My Journey Through Postpartum Depression), Shields suffered postpartum depression after the birth of Rowan, saying that she was "drowning in a pool of suicidal thoughts."

Asked if she feared a return of the condition – which Today's Matt Lauer, quoting experts, said often becomes more severe with a second child – Shields responded: "No. I'm informed now."

She also claimed to have no side effects from the antidepressants that she took ("I went from depression to ... contentment"), though she did say of one of the best-known drugs, Paxil, "was devastating when I went off of it, because I went off of it cold turkey, against what my doctors told me." She also complained that the drug made her sound as if she were drunk when she talked.

Picking up the discussion on Wednesday's The View, Barbara Walters expressed surprise that Shields herself was surprised about being pregnant again, though the actress did say that things went easier for hubby Henchy. "It was nice that this time he didn't have to show up at the clinic half an hour earlier," said Shields

Finally, asked by Joy Behar, "So, what are you getting Tom and Katie for their baby?" Shields could only laugh.

Last summer, Shields's support of antidepressants led to a war of words with Tom Cruise, who in his own appearance on Today criticized her, saying, "She doesn't understand the history of psychiatry."

The actress retaliated with a July 1 Op-Ed piece in The New York Times. "Comments like those made by Tom Cruise are a disservice to mothers everywhere," Shields wrote. "The drugs, along with weekly therapy sessions, are what saved me."